The Ukrainian parliament recently gave preliminary approval to a draft law creating an authorized economic operator (AEO) trusted trader program, according to an alert from the law firm CMS. If approved, AEO status will give Ukrainian companies a simplified customs declaration procedure, a shortened form of import declaration, priority for customs procedures and permission to use a special traffic lane for truck border crossings, the alert said. To qualify, the company must be a registered resident entity in Ukraine, have no criminal records related to commercial activity (including company officials), have not committed repetitive or systematic violations of customs rules, and be financially solvent. A second and final vote in parliament is required before the bill is passed, CMS said.

The United Kingdom signed trade continuity agreements with Fiji and Papua New Guinea to continue trading on the same terms after the U.K.’s planned withdrawal from the European Union, the U.K.’s Department for International Trade said. “The agreement allows businesses to trade as freely as they do now, without any additional barriers or tariffs. It eliminates all tariffs on all goods imported from Fiji and Papua New Guinea into the UK and will gradually remove around 80% of tariffs on British exports to these countries,” it said.

The United Kingdom is making changes to its transit procedures to prepare for its planned withdrawal from the European Union, HM Revenue and Customs said in guidance posted March 13. Though the U.K. will lose access to the EU’s Union Transit procedures, which govern transit shipments between EU member states, it has come to an agreement with the EU to join the Common Transit Convention, which applies to the EU, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Turkey, North Macedonia and Serbia.

The European Court of Auditors on March 14 issued a report on the European Union’s system for monitoring organic products, including imports. According to the report, EU member state monitoring of organic products and importers is still incomplete, and import supervision could be improved by better cooperation between member states and with the exporting countries. The report also discusses changes to the EU’s equivalence scheme that will set more stringent requirements for countries allowed to export organic products to the EU, as well as the EU’s work improving its monitoring of organic exporters to the EU, particularly in China.

In the March 15 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices for March 15 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):

South Korea recently notified the World Trade Organization that it is considering a new safety standard for outdoor exercise equipment. The proposed regulations would set safety requirements, test methods and labeling requirement, the notification says. It would be adopted no earlier than June 2019, and would enter into force no earlier than May 2020, according to the notification.

The Philippines has begun an investigation into whether to impose safeguard duties on float glass, according to a report from the World Trade Organization. The safeguards would cover “clear and tinted float glass classified under AHTN Codes 7005.29.90 (clear float glass), 7005.21.90 (tinted float glass), including 7005.10.90 (reflective glass),” the Philippines’ WTO notification said.

China is temporarily eliminating import tariffs on certain oil-meal products in an effort to find an alternative for soybean meal, according to a March 11 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The 2019 tariff change was set for this, along with other selected commodities, at the end of 2018 “to encourage oil meal imports as a substitute,” USDA said, as a result of the sharp drop in soybean imports in 2018 because of the ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute. USDA defines the oil-related products as “plant-based oil meals,” which includes oil residue resulting from extractions of peanut oil, cotton seeds, sunflower seeds, linseeds, rapeseeds, coconuts and “other plant products used in animal feeding.” China has eliminated import tariffs on those products for 2019, starting Jan. 1, the report said.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control published updates to its Specially Designated Nationals List by listing nine people associated with Venezuela, according to two OFAC notices. Both notices, which will be published in the Federal Register, announce sanctions that were issued last month. The first notice lists four people with ties to Venezuela whose sanctions were first announced by OFAC on Feb. 25, and the second notice lists five people associated with Venezuela whose sanctions were announced Feb. 15.